MORE THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND . . .

The producers of "Lost" can afford to get a long-term permit for some secluded beach on Hawai'i; house and feed its cast and crew, most of whom stay on the island and do not commute back and forth from Los Angeles during the season; pay everyone's salaries; and build that stupid looking faux boar. But they can't afford to look for and pay a decent Korean-speaking Korean-American actor in this vast and great melting-pot country of ours?

Oh, puh-leeze.

Listening to Daniel Kim (Jin) stutter through his Korean ... ouch. He CLAIMS in a recent magazine interview that he hails from a southern part of South Korea, where the dialect is such that his speaking seems clipped. But I have come across almost every dialect that is to be found in South Korea -- and even the North -- and no one speaks (or rather doesn't speak) like he does. Weird. It's painful to listen to.

And the other random allegedly Korean characters on tonight's episode: we see the little girl who DOES NOT EVEN LOOK KOREAN, and her vain call of "Appa! Appa!" evidences that fact ... we see the random old Korean men who sound like they are reading phonetics written in English on big placards in front of them. Does the glazed, slightly panicked look mean anything to you? No, friends, that's not acting. That's straining to sound like an authentic Korean on the 487th take of the scene, when you know your one-day contract is NOT going to be renewed the next day.

Look, ABC, just check me out for a second. This country is chock full of drama queen and drama king Korean-Americans who can speak Korean well, or at least as well as necessary for the viewing public. Check them out, give them a chance. Stop making me laugh with your alternative nonsense.

(Oh, and one more thing: I love the scenes allegedly set in Seoul, but look suspiciously like L.A.. Go on location, people! It's fun!)